Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from deep behind the orange
curtain in beautiful Irvine, California, the original celebrated
curiously strong peppermints.

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On with the show...

I love coffee, I love tea ...
Audience: PC users

I apologize!

In my last post [which was actually a couple of weeks ago] I told you
how to download and install Sun's official version of Java but forgot
to tell you what you should do with your Microsoft Java Virtual
Machine AFTER the installation. Whoops!

This may sound kind of strange, but my gut feeling is that you should
*NOT* uninstall the MSJVM. Rather, you should abandon it in place.

Here's why. Uninstalling Windows components, even ones that are going
to die in September, is a fool's errand if only because you have no
idea if the uninstall is going work. The worst case scenario is that
you could unintentionally break Windows in the process. And that's a
risk I'm just not willing to take.

Instead, to make sure your Microsoft Java Virtual Machine is sent off
to its own private Siberia, download and install the Sun version of
Java and then

1. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options.
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Scroll down to the Java settings and make sure there is a
checkmark next to Use Java 2 v1.42_03 for applet
4. Scroll down Microsoft VM and uncheck everything.
5. Click on OK.

After that,

1. Open your PC's control panel. (Start > Settings > Control
Panel; Start > Control Panel in XP)
1a. If you have XP and your Control Panel is a purple
page asking you to Pick a Category, click on Switch
to Classic View in the upper left corner of the page.
2. Double-click on the Java Control Panel icon. (If you have two
Java Control Panel icons, click on purple and red one not the
black, white, and red one that looks like a ouija board
pointer).
3. It'll take a while for the control panel to open, but when it
does click on the browser tab.
4. Make sure there is a checkmark next to all of the browsers
that you use.
5. Click on apply and then close the control panel.

Then, restart your computer. That's it. :)

I hope this helps!

US Airport Delays / TSA
Audience: Anyone flying into or out of a US airport

For those of you headed to a US airport anytime soon, you might want
to bookmark the homepage of the United States' Federal Aviation
Administration's Air Traffic Control System Command Center at

The FAA's ATCSCC [man, that acronym just rolls off the tongue, doesn't
it?] manages the flow of air traffic within the continental United
States, and their homepage has an airport status map that shows, in
real time, the general arrival and departure delays at the US' 40
biggest airports.

The map shows each airport's three letter airport code (like LAX or
BOS), but if you hold your mouse over a particular airport code a pop-
up window appears telling you what that code means in English. Best
of all, the dots for each airport are color-coded:

Green dots signify arrival/departure delays of less than 15

minutes.

Yellow dots indicate 16 to 45 minute delays at that particular

airport.

Red dots are for airports reporting delays of greater than 45

minutes.

Orange dots mean that the airport is closed to inbound traffic.

Red dots mean you'd best stay at home--the airport is closed.

Click on an airport's color-coded dot and a new page appears showing
you that airport's

Outbound delays based on destination.

General departure delays.

General arrival delays.

And, as long as we're talking about air travel in the United States,
you might also want to pay a visit to

and click on the "A MUST read for anyone traveling by air" link before
you head to the airport. This opens a webpage created by our friends
at the US Transportation Security Administration that provides
updated information and tips that will hopefully minimize your wait
time at your airport's security checkpoint. The "must read" page also
has a link to a 5 page, 319 Kb Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file telling you
what items are and are not allowed in your checked and carry-on
luggage. So, before you throw three lighters, a cricket bat, and a
cattle prod into your carry-on, you might want to take a quick glance
at TSA's five page handout.

Do you know of any web sites that show airport delays outside of the
US? Send me an email and let me know! I'll make sure to include
those sites in a future post.

In addition to watching airplanes and airports, your fearless bus
driver has also been busy creating yet another new PowerPoint
presentation you are free to steal. The presentation, titled "Behind
the Spinning Hourglass: The Deepest, Darkest Secrets of Your PC's
Internet Applications," can be found at

The file is kind of big--3.39 Mb-- so it'll take about 16 minutes to
download over a 28.8 modem. But, it's worth the wait because it gives
you a peek behind the scenes of your favorite Internet applications,
showing you some of the best kept tips, tricks, and secrets from
bookmarklets to the joy of IE's links bar to stealing text from
Acrobat files.

And, this is the first presentation I've done that uses screen capture
videos in animated GIF format. Slide 3, which is hidden, tells you
exactly how I was able to do that.

To view this presentation, you'll need:

1. Either Microsoft PowerPoint for the PC or the Mac *OR*
Microsoft's free PowerPoint reader for the PC or the Mac *OR*
the US$79 Star Office Suite *OR* the free OpenOffice suite.

One word of warning: This presentation talks about the most popular
*PC-based* Internet clients used in America's classrooms: Microsoft
Internet Explorer, AOL Instant Messenger, Real Networks' RealOne
Player, Adobe Acrobat, etc. I recognize that the term "most popular"
does not necessarily mean "best." Many of the most popular classroom
Internet clients have significant flaws, flaws that are fixed in
other, alternative Internet clients.

HOWEVER, since most American educators don't have the time or, in many
cases, the administrative permissions to download, install, and
configure a new web browser, IM client, or streaming audio player,
this presentation shows educators how to overcome the limitations
inherent in many of the most popular Internet programs they deal with
every day.

That doesn't mean that you can't take this workshop and tweak it so
that it talks about Mac and *nix Internet applications instead Wintel
ones. In fact, please do!

Can you think of anything I've missed or got wrong in this
presentation? Drop me a line. I'd love to hear what you think.

The Next Best Thing

Linda from Marlinton, West Virginia recently wrote and said "The next
best thing to Tourbus is the Smart Computing magazine that you guys
recommend. I've been getting it since last summer and it has solved
numerous problems for me and my friends."

Thanks, Linda! We hope other Tourbus riders will discover the Plain
English answers to their computing questions that Smart Computing
delivers every month. Do you want to speed up your PC? Get rid of
spyware and keep hackers out? Try Smart Computing today -- get
your FREE TRIAL issue NOW!